Meta, accused of creating “seductive” chatbots, with celebrities like Taylor Swift, without their consent

Meta Platforms has used the name and face of celebrities like Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez to create romantic and sexual tension chats, without their permission, an investigation shows by the Reuters news agency, cites news.ro.

Some of the avatars were generated by users through a company tool, but at least three, including two who imitated Taylor Swift, were made by a Meta employee.

Reuters chats were presented as the real stars, flirted with users, suggested meetings and, in some cases, produced photo-realistic images with suggestive or intimate content. More serious, Meta also allowed the creation of avatars of minor actors, including 16 years, who generated inappropriate images.

The spokesman of Meta, Andy Stone, acknowledged that the company's tools should not have created such images and raised the problem on account of errors of application of internal policies, which prohibit the nude or sexual content. Meta has already deleted more of the chatbots.

The case raises legal questions about the “right to image”, protected in the legislation of American states, as well as security risks for artists, who may face followers or obsessed fans convinced that they interact with the real star.

The Sag-AFTRA union has requested the adoption of a federal law to defend the voices and faces of people for abusive use by AI.

Meta is already under the pressure of the authorities, after discovering that the internal rules allowed chatbot to have “romantic” conversations with minors – a fact qualified as an error by the company, but which initiated investigations at the US Senate.